The Russian strategy in Ukraine has been thwarted since its invasion began by stiffer than expected military resistance and an armed and motivated civilian population that have turned targets like the capital city of Kyiv into fortresses. So the Russians have adopted a new strategy, apparently — attack those who can’t fight back.

In the city of Mariupol, Russians have been bombing and shelling the city’s civilian population. When people try to flee the fighting, they are shot down. Corridors for evacuees have become killing fields. Those inside the city are bombed out of their homes, struggling to find food, medicine and fuel.

On Wednesday, Russian troops targeted a maternity and children’s hospital in Mariupol. Three people were killed and 17 wounded. Two more hospitals in another city, Zhytomyr, were reportedly targeted.

Such barbarism is appalling. Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy asked what threat the mothers and children in the hospital were to the Russian Federation?

“What kind of country is this, the Russian Federation, which is afraid of hospitals, afraid of maternity hospitals, and destroys them?”

The answer is obvious. It is a country led by a tryant and a war criminal, who should be held responsible for all the crimes committed by his troops in the war he has unleashed.